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<h3><a name="main">Boot Loader Help</a></h3>
Welcome to <em>&product;</em><br><br>

Use this menu to select the desired function. If you have
problems navigating in this help system, press
<em>F1</em> to enter the <a href="#help">description</a> of the help
system. The main functions in this menu are:<br><br>

<a href="#harddisk">Boot from Hard Disk</a>: This selection will not do
anything to the system. It only starts a previously installed
operating system.<br><br>

<a href="#linux">Installation</a>: 
This installation mode works on most machines. If you experience a
system freeze during boot or problems with detection of your hardware
components, such as disk controllers or network cards, try one of the
following installation options. <br><br>

<a href="#noacpi">Installation -- ACPI Disabled</a>: Many of the
currently-sold computers have incomplete or faulty ACPI
implementations. This selection disables ACPI support in the
kernel, but still enables many performance features, like DMA for IDE
hard disks.  <br><br>

<a href="#failsafe">Installation -- Safe Settings</a>: If you were not
successful with <em>Installation</em>, this selection might
solve the issue.<br><br>

<a href="#rescue">Rescue System</a>: This boot image starts a small
Linux system in RAM. This is useful if the system does not start properly.
After booting this system, log in as root. <br><br>

<a href="#memtest">Memory Test</a>: Memory testing is useful for more than
checking installation of new memory modules. It is a stress test
for a big part of your computer system and may indicate hardware
problems. <br><br>

<a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>: The boot options may change the
behavior of your system completely. They are settings for
the kernel.<br><br>

<a href="#help">F1 Help</a>: This is context sensitive. It will
show different screens depending on the active element of the
boot screen. There is also a description of this help system
available.<br><br>

<a href="#videomode">F2 Video Mode</a>: Here, choose between
different screen resolutions while installing. If you encounter
problems with the graphical installation, the <em>text mode</em> may
be a work-around for you.<br><br>

<a href="#install_src">F3 Installation Source</a>: Choose the
installation source.<br><br>

<a href="#keytable">F4 Language</a>: Set language and keyboard mapping
used by the boot loader.<br><br>

<a href="#driverupdate">F5 Driver Update</a>: For very new machines, a
driver update may be needed to install the system.<br><br>

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<h3><a name="help">Using the Help System</a></h3>

The boot loader online help is context sensitive. It gives information
about the selected menu item or, if you are editing boot options,
it tries to look up information about the option in which the cursor is
positioned.<br>
<br>
Navigation Keys<br><br>

  <em>Up Arrow</em>: highlight previous link<br>
  <em>Down Arrow</em>: highlight next link<br>
  <em>Left Arrow</em>, <em>Backspace</em>: return to previous topic<br>
  <em>Right Arrow</em>, <em>Enter</em>, <em>Space</em>: follow link<br>
  <em>Page Up</em>: scroll up one page<br>
  <em>Page Down</em>: scroll down one page<br>
  <em>Home</em>: go to page start<br>
  <em>End</em>: go to page end<br>
  <em>Esc</em>: leave help<br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>

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<h3><a name="driverupdate">Driver Update</a></h3>

If you need a driver update floppy or CD-ROM, press <em>F5</em>. The
boot loader asks you to insert the driver update medium after
loading the Linux kernel.<br><br>

A driver update is typically a floppy with new versions of hardware
drivers or bug fixes needed during installation.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="videomode">Video Mode Selection</a></h3>

Press <em>F2</em> to get the list of video modes your graphics card
supports. The highest mode your monitor can display is preselected.<br><br>

It is possible that your monitor cannot be detected automatically. In that
case, select your preferred mode manually.<br><br>

If your system has problems with the graphics card during the
installation, the <em>text mode</em> may be a usable work-around.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="keytable">Language and Keyboard Layout Selection</a></h3>

Press <em>F4</em> to change language and keyboard layout the boot loader uses.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="install_src">Installation Source</a></h3>

Press <em>F3</em> to choose an installation source.<br><br>

This is the same as using the <a href="#o_install">install</a>
boot option.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="linux">Installation</a></h3>

Select <em>Installation</em> to start the default installation. The
<a href="#opt">boot options</a> entered are used in the
start-up. This item activates many features of commonly available
hardware. <br><br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="harddisk">Boot from Hard Disk</a></h3>

Select <em>Boot Installed OS</em> to start the system installed on
your local hard disk. This system must be installed properly, because
only the MBR (Master Boot Record) on the first hard disk is started.
The device ID of the first hard disk is provided by the BIOS of
the computer. <br><br>

Use this if you forgot to remove the CD or DVD from your
drive and want to start the computer from the hard disk.<br><br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="noacpi">Installation -- ACPI Disabled</a></h3>

Very new hardware sometimes
requires ACPI to control the interrupt handling. ACPI completely
replaces the old APM system. <br><br>

Select <em>Installation -- ACPI Disabled</em> if you encounter
problems during boot of the kernel.  Known problems with machines that
have problems with ACPI are:
<br><br>

   * kernel freezes when booting<br>
   * PCI Cards are not detected or initialized properly<br><br>


<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="failsafe">Installation -- Safe Settings</a></h3>

Select <em>Installation -- Safe Settings</em> if you encounter hangs
while installing or irreproducible errors. This option disables DMA
for IDE drives and all power management features.
See also the kernel options for 
<a href="#o_acpi">acpi</a> and <a href="#o_ide">ide</a>.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="rescue">Rescue System</a></h3>

The <em>Rescue System</em> is a small RAM disk base system. From there,
it is possible to make all kinds of changes to an installed system. Because
only low-level tools are available in this system, it is intended for
experts.<br><br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="memtest">Memory Test</a></h3>

The included <em>Memory Test</em> provides good possibilities to
stress test the hardware of a system. Its main purpose is to detect
broken RAM, but it also stresses many other parts of the system. <br>

There is no guarantee that the memory is good if no errors are
found, although most of memory defects will be found.<br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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<h3><a name="opt">Boot Options</a></h3>

There are two types of boot options available. First, there are
options that affect the installer. Second, there are kernel
options. Some of the more common options are: <br><br>
a) installer options<br>
<br>
  <a href="#o_install">install</a> -- select an installation source<br>
  <a href="#network">network options</a> -- the network options<br>
<br><br>
b) kernel options<br>
<br>
  <a href="#o_splash">splash</a> -- influence the behavior of the splash screen<br>
  <a href="#o_acpi">acpi</a> -- advanced configuration and power interface<br>
  <a href="#o_ide">ide</a> -- control the IDE subsystem<br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>

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<h3><a name="o_install">Installer Options: install</a></h3>

By default, the local CD-ROMs are searched for the installation source.
For a network install, select the
<em>install</em> option. Possible installation protocols are<br>
  * FTP<br>
  * NFS<br>
  * HTTP<br>
The syntax to use is just like standard URLs. For example, 
if your server is found at 192.168.0.1 and you want to do an NFS-based
install from the directory /install on this server, specify
the source as follows:<br><br>

  <em>install=nfs://192.168.0.1/install</em><br><br>

The network card will either be configured with <em>dhcp</em> or you
must specify the parameters yourself as described in the
<a href="#network">network options</a>.<br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>

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<h3><a name="o_splash">Kernel Options: splash</a></h3>


The splash screen is the picture shown during system start-up.<br>
<br>
<em>splash=0</em><br><br> The splash screen is switched off. This may be useful
with very old monitors or if some error occurs.<br>
<br>
<em>splash=verbose</em><br><br> Activates splash, kernel and boot messages are 
still shown.<br>
<br>
<em>splash=silent</em><br><br>
Activates splash, but no messages. Instead a progress bar is drawn.<br>
<br>
Return to <a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>

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<h3><a name="network">Installer Options: Network Options</a></h3>

It is possible to configure the network interface right now. The
hardware will be detected later by DrakX. The minimum set of options
to configure your network card consists of host IP and netmask. For
example:<br><br>

  <em>hostip=192.168.0.10  netmask=255.255.255.0</em><br>
<br>
or in a shorter form:<br><br>

  <em>hostip=192.168.0.10/24</em><br>
<br>

If you specified a <a href="#o_install">network-based install</a> and do
not specify both of these options, the installer tries to configure
the network interface with <em>dhcp</em>. If you need a default
gateway, specify this with the option <em>gateway</em>. For
example:<br><br>

  <em>gateway=192.168.0.8</em><br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>

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<h3><a name="o_acpi">Kernel Options: acpi</a></h3>

ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is a
standard that defines power and configuration management interfaces
between an operating system and the BIOS. By default, <em>acpi</em> is
switched on when a BIOS is detected that is newer than from year
2000. There are several commonly
used parameters to control the behavior of ACPI:<br>
<br>
  <em>pci=noacpi</em> -- do not use ACPI to route PCI interrupts
  <em>acpi=oldboot</em> -- only the parts of ACPI that are relevant
for booting remain activated<br>
  <em>acpi=off</em> -- switch off ACPI completely<br>
  <em>acpi=force</em> -- switch on ACPI even if your BIOS is dated
before 2000<br>
<br>

<br><br>Return to <a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>

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<h3><a name="o_ide">Kernel Options: ide</a></h3>

IDE is, unlike SCSI, commonly used in most desktop workstations.
To circumvent some hardware problems that occur with IDE systems, use the
kernel parameter: <br><br> 

  <em>ide=nodma</em>  -- switch off DMA for IDE drives<br>



<br><br>Return to <a href="#opt">Boot Options</a>.


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<h3><a name="bits">Software Type Selection</a></h3>

You have the choice to install the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Mandriva Linux.

<br><br>Return to <a href="#main">Start Page</a>


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